Bloomberg: Donald Trump’s Global Deals Reveal ‘Trouble in Many Spots’

Bloomberg’s Stephanie Baker and Tim Higgins write that Donald Trump made millions off his name “but there are losses and lawsuits too.”

In Panama, his condominium owners are trying to fire him. In Canada and Turkey, his business partners want to cut him loose. In Scotland and Ireland he claims to be making millions but so far is losing money.

Donald Trump says his organization is in talks on more than 100 deals, 85 percent of them outside the U.S., and that if elected president he will bring to international relations the savvy he has demonstrated as a global deal maker.

But an examination of his operations abroad reveals that, while he has made many millions selling his name, he has chosen a number of inexperienced — even questionable — partners, sometimes infuriated buyers and associates and moved late into saturated markets, producing less income than advertised.

A number of naming-rights deals over the past decade have involved investors paying him multimillion-dollar sums, sometimes with a percentage of condo sales or a management fee to run hotel operations. In some places, such as the Philippines, there are strong early sales with projects due to be completed in the next few years. But others have gone far less well, descending into legal conflicts amid claims of broken promises and empty apartments.